According to the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Islamic Republic is allowed to continue research and development on more advanced nuclear centrifuges. In 2024 it will be able to begin using these, and in 2026 it can enrich as much uranium as it wants, short of levels suitable for making atomic weapons. By 2031, all restrictions will be lifted. The results, writes Ephraim Asculai, are that even without cheating, Iran can gradually abbreviate the amount of time it would require to start producing nuclear weapons:

[I]f Iran abides by the agreement to the letter, by the eighth year, if not before, Iran can have perfected one or more centrifuge models capable of high rates of enrichment. Iran would be in a situation in which it had already prepared the capacity to produce as many centrifuges as it wants and at the rate of production it chooses, even if not actually producing these before the eighth year.

By year ten, Iran’s breakout time will already have been reduced considerably; and by year fifteen Iran is officially permitted to do all it wants, including significant amounts of enrichment to military levels (around 90 percent). The breakout times will then be measured by weeks, not months. . . .

Iran knows how to be patient. There should be little doubt that unless something dramatic changes in the Iranian regime or its policies, it will seek this nuclear capability.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.